


Tincture

by freshneverfrozen



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Pairing undecided, Reader-Insert, Tropes and I cannot lie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27925912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freshneverfrozen/pseuds/freshneverfrozen
Summary: Or, the one where the reader steals Ivarr's horse.When her home is burned by a mad Dane, a healer must decide if her fate lies with forgiveness or revenge.Please Note: Rape/Non-con warning applied to cover future threats and insinuations made by characters, not actions.
Relationships: Reader/Basim, Reader/Hytham, Reader/Ivarr
Comments: 29
Kudos: 139





	1. Coward

Snow burns. No one had ever told you. It is a scalding cold that stiffens your bones and cracks your teeth, and you are glad the moment the last flurries are behind you.

The people whose company you learn to keep are never as bothered by the snow as you. Their eyes shine like ice and their faces are shadowed and grim. They had not taken to you easily, a foreigner like them, but unlike them, you did not earn your place through rended flesh and broken bones.

You mend their flesh. You set their bones.

Eventually, they began to call you something other than ‘troll’ and ‘witch’. Eventually, your hut is traded for a slant-framed house at the edge of a village that survives both Saxons and Danes. 

‘Healer’ they call you, and it’s just as well. You left your name behind in a faraway place. 

You count a spring with them and then a summer. But just as the north-country snow melts, time changes all things.

One gray morning, when the mists are heavy over the moors, something besides the creeping cold wakes you. Wood creaks under a layer of furs as you sit up in your bed, rubbing sleep from your eyes and straining to hear again what drew you from sleep.

There is only yawning silence. It stretches past the walls of your house and over the hills. Beyond your walls, the wind is still, the farm animals not yet restless, and the corner fire is long dead past the comfort of crackling embers. 

No, you realize. It has not been noise that has awoken you.

A feeling swirls in your gut. _That’s it_. A pack-and-run instinct that you have trusted before. And just that simply, it occurs to you that life here is over. You can rebuild. But you must first survive.

‘Witch,’ they once called you. ‘Uncanny’ would be closer to the truth.

The floor is chilly beneath your bare feet as you slip from your bed. You grab nothing, not food, nor tincture. With a hand to the cord that holds the small draw-string pouch around your neck, you know you will have only a few pieces of silver. That, and your life, will be enough.

You have felt this feeling before. This _knowing_.

You take only your dark woolen cloak from the back of a chair and, wrapping it around your shoulders, you peek past the hung sail-cloth that serves as a door and out into the foggy blue of early morn. 

Quiet. Still. A calm before a storm.

Yes. You know this feeling. 

You melt from the shadows of your home, around the side and between the stables and granary. You know the families. Saxons on one side, Danes on the other. One has children. The other an elderly mother. She had been the first in this place to call you ‘healer’ when you eased the ache in her old bones. 

Silently, you move on swift steps until cold mud from the cart path gives way to tall grass that stings your feet. There, you crouch. You move a little further and listen for nothing. The further you go, the more guilt turns your stomach. So many are still asleep in their beds. You are their healer.

But you cannot save them. 

Near the edge of the field stands an ancient oak, out of place and far from its brethren in the forests to the east. It stands among the high grass, a field’s width from the village. You lower yourself against the gnarled base, settling down until all can see of the village are the plumes of smoke from the hearth fires drifting into the sky. Your feet are chilled to numbness, caked in mud and grit, but your hands shake too badly to massage the feeling back into them. 

Instead, you wait, and you exhale your breath between your knees so that it does not rise above the grass. 

And you do not flinch when the first of the battle cries pierce the air. You had known they were coming. Danes. Different from the peaceful breed settled here. 

Screams follow smoke, and then follows the wafting scent of blood and shit on the wind.

You had known.

You sink lower against the tree and in an awful moment, wish that you might freeze. When the wishing is unanswered, you try not to listen as the screams grow fewer and farther between. The terror of the butchered turns to gleeful cries from the invaders. How long has it taken? The sun has yet to clear the sky. Another sacking done in England. Danes killing Danes, killing Saxons, killing all. But not you. Not yet.

And then you hear it.

A sound separates itself from the victory din. It begins as a rustling through the grass, not soft as your steps had been, but moving quickly and toward you. A wayward Dane? A survivor?

 _Lie still_ , you demand of yourself as your muscles seize on instinct. You press yourself deeper into the dirt. A fool would run. A dead fool. Whatever comes, it cannot know you have hidden yourself here, tucked yourself away amid the roots and reeds.

A set of shoulders and a dark head above them glade over the tall grass. He is a Dane. You can smell the blood on him, see the gleam of it against the shaved side of his scalp. At his nearness, your heart pounds until it rattles your teeth, but you do not take your eyes from him. If he spots you, and only then, you will run. It will be the death of you.

But he cannot see you. Not here. But even as you think them, those thoughts sound like lies.

The Dane curses, and it is then that you hear the slosh of liquid against clay walls. His steps are burdened. Carrying something. He shakes the bulk in his arms and you hear the splatter of something wet over grass and smell the cloying scent of oil and pitch.

They mean to burn the fields.

And you with them.

Why harvest, when you can ransack? Why spare lives, when it is easier to take gold from a corpse? 

You are a healer, but you would kill them all if you could. 

The Dane moves off, his back to you now. His shoulders are slim, his body lightly armored. If you run, there is every likelihood this one will overtake you. But you cannot wait, not as you hear him call out in his rough language for fire. A torch. You will have to slip away or face certain death in this snare.

You shift, quiet as a hare in the underbrush, and begin to move eastward. Wet ground seeps into the thin fabric of the under-dress you had escaped in, but you ignore the spreading damp against your chest as you crawl. The sound of a horse’s braying and the noise of hooves through grass drives you forward. You know without looking that someone has brought the Dane his torch.

The crack of a mad laugh sets your teeth to grinding. The Dane shouts, “Let the ravens pick their fill through the smoke!” 

“Careful that you do not burn with the fields, Ivarr,” says another voice, too full of reason to earn anything other than ridicule.

The Dane laughs again and soon, the rush of fire catching fuel overtakes the sound of him. It spreads and crackles at your back, wind carrying the heat, carrying the flame. Toward you. 

You’ve no choice but to run now. 

You’re going to die after all. By fire or the swing of an axe, it doesn’t matter. Dead is dead. Perhaps, this is punishment for leaving the others unwarned. If that is so, you are cut by the bitter thought that the divine has been swift in retribution.

Heat licks at your calves sooner than you expect and you push to your feet. The forest is a league away, over crag and hill and the sludge of the moors. You will never outrun them. But perhaps the flame and smoke will hide you -- 

“Aha! Look there! One last sheep left to gut!” The bark of the Dane drives the breath from you. “Give me your horse!”

“But Ivarr -- “

A snarl from the Dane is all you hear before the noise of your bare feet beating over grass drowns out the rest. _The moors_. You need only make it to the moors and then the muck and hollows will slow him. 

With a gasp of relief, you clear the field, legs burning and catching beneath a skirt heavy with mud. Another small hill lies ahead, this one rocky with moss-covered stones. You dart up the first slope, casting yourself over one rock just as you hear the thundering of hooves nearing. 

The Dane laughs, a hollow, delirious sound that you have heard before from madmen you could not cure. You glance back, your eyes drawn to the sheen of teeth. His is a gruesome smile, crooked and jagged like a jack o’ lantern on Samhain. Fear boils away the cold as you register just how near he is, and you spot a hand sweeping at you from the back of a dappled horse.

“Where will you go, foxling?” he jeers. “Run! Run faster! This is no chase!”

A protesting snort from the horse ruffles your hair as you near the top of the hill. The beast proves a blessing, and you throw yourself from its path just as the Dane reaches for you again. With curse, he flails at the air, and before he can turn his mount, you are struck with an idea. 

Instinct has always served you well and as it beckons, you listen. Leaping with a snarled cry, you catch hold of the Dane’s outstretched arm. Your weight and the momentum of the horse unseats him and for a moment, a very brief one, your eyes lock with his. They widen, surprise sparking behind the wild blue of them, and in the instant before he falls, you think you see a grin turn his lips. 

He strikes the ground with a thud, crying out as the horse’s hooves catch his legs. You leap over his body as it rolls, your fingers twisting into the mane of the horse. One bound and then another, and you find your purchase, swinging yourself up into the saddle. You look back over your shoulder, eyes narrowing in focus on the Dane as the horse rocks beneath you. He staggers to his feet, yards away now, and he _laughs_.

“Well done, little fox! Run, while I catch my breath!”

His laughs grow louder, wilder, and when you turn from him, you dare not look back again.

.

………………………………………

.

There might as well be snow. 

English nights are cold when spent in nothing but a damp shift and cloak. The horse, at least, makes good company. The village is three nights behind you now, three nights that you feel in your empty belly. On the first, you had not slept, fearing the mad Dane would appear from the shadows. The second had passed in the cradle of old ruins. The third, you had found an abandoned home.

Now, with morning blooming outside, you saddle the horse, a mare whose name you do not know. You had spent the night considering names for her, to replace whatever the Danes called her, if it had been anything at all, but in the end, you decided on nothing. You’ve little fondness for all the names given to you, so you will not do the same to her.

She is simply the mare, as anonymous as her rider.

 _A starving rider_ , you think grimly as you swing into the saddle, with your stomach growling to remind you that wild raspberries do not take the place of bread and mutton. 

“Will you share your grass?” you ask the mare as you lean forward to scratch between her ears. “You do not seem as starved as I.”

She snorts as though to say too late, and with a glance at the earth below, you see that she has eaten the greenery to nothing.

Muttering through a smile, you say, “Ah, payment for saving my hide. I understand.”

A half-day’s ride brings rain. You pull your cloak tighter around yourself and take solace in knowing bad weather means fewer travelers, and fewer travelers mean less likelihood of bandits. It is by that reasoning alone that you are surprised to see two figures crest the hilltop ahead. Both ride horses of their own and as they near, you cannot make out their faces for the sodden white hoods they wear.

Better unfriendly than dead, you adjust your own hood, and hunker lower over the saddle. You guide the mare off the path to make way for the riders. Monks? They look like men of the Cloth, perhaps on their way to one of the Saxon holdings. If so, they are riding into Dane territory. 

But that is their problem, not yours.

Your teeth grit as one slows his horse as they pass. 

“Traveler,” he says, his accent strange, as foreign as yours. “Is it this way to Fremdeleigh?”

Fremdeleigh is ash and ember now.

In your hesitation to speak, you cut your eyes upward beneath the edge of your hood. Looking at the man, a length of curling dark hair falls about a dark, trimmed beard. More than that, you cannot see. The other rider, slightly smaller, hunched as though the ride has pained him, turns his face away. Of him, you can see nothing.

The man is waiting, and should you hesitate longer, you risk more questions. “Fremdeleigh was that way, yes.”

The man is quiet for a stretch. 

“Was?” His voice...such a simple questions gives you chills. It is a dangerous voice, one that has you wishing for highwaymen rather than priests. If they are priests. The knives and daggers strapped about the men are not lost on you.

“Perhaps it is, if it still stands. Danes took it three days past.”

The men share a look, though you doubt they can see one another’s eyes. You make to move the mare forward.

“A moment,” says the man. “Do you come from Fremdeleigh?”

“Why do you ask this? What is left of it lies down this road. Brave the Danes, if you must go there.”

“Perhaps I make a habit of braving Danes?” Charm settles in the man’s voice too late. It does little soothe your wariness. “And I ask to know what sort of Danes they were.”

 _Needling man_. You should not let his prying bother you, but Fremdeleigh is not so far behind you that the question’s answer is easy to face. 

“The wicked sort,” you reply, and at this, you think you catch a snort of agreement from the second man. “Now, safe travels to you both, strangers.” A rolling growl from your stomach accompanies your words, and you quickly turn your face away.

You have just set your heels into the mare’s sides when the first man calls out, “You’ve a hungry look about you. Perhaps you would trade answers for a meal?” 

Another dinnerless night feels more than you can stand. But a part of you would sooner starve than risk a camp alone with these men, who are perhaps not as godly as their robes would claim. 

The man seems to read your thoughts. Surely, he has figured you to be a woman by now. An easy target, if he wishes it. “We will not harm you, this we swear. We want only your time and to ask a few questions.”

“Men have done worse to women with smaller promises than that one,” you reply. 

The rain is coming harder now. The mare throws her head. If you do not get her beneath the shelter of trees, she may take herself. Your stomach growls again. The pain of emptiness is setting in. You consider your choices for a moment -- a hungry, endless ride through this weather or hooded men, armed to the teeth. Before the man can refute this -- indeed, it seems he’s rather reluctant to argue this at all -- you make up your mind. 

“Remove your hood,” you say, “I would know your eyes.”

The twitch of a smile appears beneath the beard. “As you wish.”

He raises his hand and pulls down the hood, revealing a head of thick, black hair to the elements. He is a foreigner, and farther from home than the Danes had been. His skin has the dark cast of men from the east, his eyes darker still. 

They are a killer’s eyes. You know it the moment they meet yours and a prickling begins at your neck. But this one is not rabid like the men from whom you had fled. He is a killer, but something tells you he hunts more dangerous prey than the likes of you.

“Very well,” you say when you can stand to hold his gaze no longer. “Answers for a meal.”

“You are no longer worried we will kill you?” he asks. You do not think he is as surprised as he feigns. 

“No,” you reply simply. 

The other man, smaller and quieter, shakes his head beneath his hood. This one thinks you stupid or mad, but he winces before he decides to protest, and just as silently, he settles over his saddle and looks away.

.

……………………..

.

The thick trees are shelter enough for the three of you. Several times, as you watch the men set about tying off their horses and building a small fire beneath an outcropping of rocks and a fallen log, you reconsider your foolishness. But when one of the men, the quiet one, retrieves bread from his satchel and places it before the fire, you are finally coaxed down from the mare.

“Here,” he says, handing you the bread and a helping of...dried fish, you realize as you unwrap the parcel. “It is fish.”

You know fish when you smell it. This one _does_ think you stupid, after all. Perhaps he is right. But obvious though the words are, you are surprised to hear that his voice is softer than that of his compatriot. It is better suited to a poet than a man strapped to the teeth in blades. As he pulls away, you get a glimpse of his face, still hidden beneath the hood, and find it younger than the other man’s.

“A Dane’s meal,” you reply, glad your eyes are shielded by your own hood.

“A Dane’s meal is still a meal.” He turns away and sulks over to the far side of the fire. His movements are hitched, a hand going to his side as he lowers himself down. You see no blood on the white of his robes, so perhaps his is an old wound. The healer in you nearly as what ails him, but you hold your tongue and take a bite of bread.

The other man moves more quietly than you would like, crouching beside the fire, his eyes and expression hardly warmed by its flames. He tries to smile at you, but seems to know that will not earn him any faith, and after a moment, his expression slips back into something cold and unreadable. 

“I am Basim,” he says, “This is my friend. You may call him Hytham, if you wish, though I cannot promise he will hear you over his groaning.”

“I am fine,” says the other man, but you know a lie when you hear it.

You swallow your mouthful. “Strange names to hear in England.”

“Strange times,” mutters Hytham. 

Basim’s eyes run from your feet -- still bare -- to your face, and you fight the urge to draw in on yourself. The urge passes as you realize there is nothing lecherous in the look; it is...appraising. It sees more than you care to reveal, and you make up your mind to eat quickly.

“You have the look of someone who is running. Can I assume it is from Danes?”

“You knew that when you offered this meal. What is it you really wish to know, Basim?”

His lips twitch again. Is it an uncontrolled tick, you wonder? A man like this strikes you as one who has very little outside his control, so perhaps the smiles, if that is what they can be called, are intended to put you at ease. 

“We are looking for our friend. We have news for her.”

_Looking for a Dane._

You frown at the dried fish and cast a wary-eyed look at Hytham. “A Dane’s meal, after all. You should have just said so.”

“Would you have taken the first bite?” asks Hytham.

You make a face and it is then that you learn that Hytham does not hide his smiles so easily as Basim. You look back to the other man. “I saw little, I’m afraid. One Dane chased me. That is his horse.”

“You stole his horse?” Basim raises a brow. 

“He deserved worse. He was scarred. A bigger man than he looked. Another called him Ivarr. That is the only name I heard.”

“That is name enough,” says Basim. He sits back on his heels and gestures to you. “Please, eat.”

As you take another bite, you’ve half a mind to ask if they are friends of this Ivarr, but doing so will open the door to more questions and both these men seem the sort to prefer asking them. You have made it this far; you’ll not have your throat cut for nosiness. As you eat, the skies darken, until midday could be mistaken for night, and thunder rolls overhead.

Hytham’s voice draws your glance. You had thought the man dozing as the conversation waned, but he is awake, though his mouth is set in a bitter line. “That’ll be Thor, or so I’m told.”

“You should have stayed in Ravensthorpe,” Basim says, but his scolding is gentle. 

“I tire of four walls. I am fine.”

 _Liar_.

He stretches out his legs, but the motion seems to pain him. He catches you looking. “It has been a long ride.”

“A long ride on an injury, even an old one, can do a man more harm than the change of scenery will do him good.” You shove the last bite of bread into your mouth and swallow. Hytham -- and Basim, too, you notice -- eyes you cautiously as you stand. Or you think he does. He tilts his head, hood slipping until you can see a little more of his cheek. You kneel beside him and ask, “What is bothering you?”

“Not an old injury,” says Basim, “but not a new one, either.”

“Let me look. It will be my thanks to you both for sharing your food, and it will pass time in this rain.”

“Are you a healer?” 

“I was. Before Fremdeleigh burned. I will be one again once I am settled.”

“I am fine.” Hytham’s jaw takes on the proud jutt of someone determined to let their pride outweigh their sense. At last, he has enough of the hood, and sweeps it back so that he can glare at you properly. You had been right. He is younger than Basim, perhaps younger than you, though the handsomeness of his features is weighed down by a pain you had only glimpsed beneath the hood. 

Despite Hytham’s potent scowl, you shake your head. “That’s the third time you have said so and each time, your whining gets louder.”

A rich crack of laughter from Basim startles you both. “Perhaps I should leave you to her and I shall ride to Fremdeleigh?”

“I should think he has learned this whining from someone,” you reply, and this quiets Basim. “Best you stay and hold him down. In case any bones need re-setting.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Hytham tells you quickly. 

“How would I know? You will not let me look.”

“I am -- “

“Fine! You are ‘fine!’” you snap. “Pass the time in pain, then. Have your raider friends look after you. Three days ride from now.”

 _This_ pales him. His eyes -- you could not name their color if you tried -- flick to Basim. “Three days? You said it was two.”

“I thought it was.” Basim holds out his hands, but somewhere in the dark of his eyes, you think he knows better. “A simple mistake.”

“You do not make mistakes,” grouses the younger man. He looks back to you. “Have a look if you wish. Or spare me the slow death and kill me now.”

You smile. “I can do either.”

“A healer and a horse-thief. Strange company to find on the road.” Basim stands, drawing his hood over his head. “Swear to me you will not kill Hytham...” He pauses, his eyes flicking to you, and you realize that he has neither asked your name, nor have you given it.

“You are leaving?” asks Hytham, voice rising above the patter of rain. “Leaving me with this stranger?”

“I am riding ahead. Something tells me I leave you in capable hands.”

“No,” protests Hytham. “I can ride.” He gets to his feet. You watch as he grits his teeth through whatever pain plagues him. He holds his ground, even as you stand to reach for him should that change. 

“Follow when you can. And you,” Basim looks to you, “If our paths do not cross again, go well. I would be careful returning to Fremdeleigh, were I you. If what I know of Ivarr is true, he will care less for his horse, and more about the woman who dared take it from him.”

 _Return to Fremdeleigh_? The possibility had not occurred to you. Fremdeleigh is gone. 

Hytham’s protests cease as Basim reaches his horse, lifting himself into the saddle with a grace you’ve only seen in woodland creatures. He waves once and is soon vanished beneath the forest boughs. Hytham spins on his heel, brushing past you, and drops back down by the fire with less swiftness than which he had stood. You know the sight of a man wounded in more ways than one, and some wounds, even you cannot heal.

Instead, you set to business. “Off with this,” you say, tugging at his tunic. He scowls, but the fight has gone out of him. When the tunic is removed, bared skin is revealed to you. The man is, without doubt, not a priest. His chest and arms are wiry with muscle, a few faint scars marring the skin here and there. It is only a happenstance glance that you notice one of his fingers is missing, cut cleanly at the knuckle. 

“You move like a man with broken ribs,” you say, “How long ago did this happen?”

“Months.”

“And it still pains you so?”

“It is the cold.”

At this, you smile. “Foul stuff, the cold. Breeds barbarians.”

Hytham tries not to smile, but that, too, strains him. His friend’s departure -- if that is what Basim truly is to him -- has left him sullen, but he withstands your prodding well enough. Only when your hands run down his sides does he shy. 

“I am --”

“Do not say ‘fine.’” 

Instead, he says nothing.

His skin is warm to the touch, a good sign for the circulation, and you notice that your roving fingers leave gooseflesh in their wake. 

“The bones have set.” You sit back, drawing your feet under you. “Unless you would like me to break them again, this pain will revisit you. If I had my stores, I could make something to ease the burden, but those burned with Fremdeleigh. For now…” You cast your eyes about, at last coming to rest on the sash that had been removed with Hytham’s tunic. “Give me a moment.”

A moment turns into a few minutes. Hytham eyes you warily when you ask for his sash, but agrees, only to panic when you near the fire with the fabric in hand. He is quieted when he sees what you are doing. You wrap a few cooling coals in the material, testing their heat against your wrist, and returning to his side when you are finished. 

“Press this here,” you tell him, “It will soothe the ache.”

“For a time?”

“For a time.”

Bitterness clouds his expression, but it is short lived, disappearing with a nod. “Thank you, healer.”

Your fingers flex at the word. You had not thought to hear it again so soon. Last time, it had taken a year, maybe two, after you had lost everything to find yourself again. As Hytham’s eyes meet yours, you wonder if, perhaps, the Danes were not as thorough in their destruction as they had hoped.

Hytham’s eyes study your face; they are keener than you had given him credit for, and you feel them pulling at the edges of what you wish to hide. 

“What will you do?” he asks. “Could there be anything left of your home?”

“In Fremdeleigh? I doubt it. If I returned, I would likely only find Danes.”

“The Danes are not all so bad. Their northern brethren may be more to your liking.” His smile is wry one, a little more honest than you would like. Either it or the fire has given a pretty flush to his cheeks. “You were unlucky to cross Ivarr. He is a menace.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him.”

“Will you go to Fremdeleigh? To find Basim?”

Hytham nods. “He is testing me. To see if I will return to Ravensthorpe, or follow him. I am good for more than reading scrolls and maps.”

“You look as though you are good in a fight.” You tap a finger to one scar that runs over his shoulder, paler than the rest of his skin. He glances away when you say this, like a maid who has been told she is pretty. “It would be a risk to return there. Not when I’ve no promise that there is anything left to salvage.”

“A shame,” says Hytham with a smile, glancing at you, only to look away again. “All this bread and...fish,” his nose wrinkles, “is going with me.”

“Speak plainly, _priest_.” Your teasing is less pleasing to him than the idea of dried fish, and he waves you off with a flutter of a four-fingered hand. “If you’ve an idea, let’s hear it.”

“Return to Fremdeleigh. Recover your stores if you can. And if you can, come with us to Ravensthorpe. A healer is always welcome, especially one who is not empty-handed.”

“Healer?” You raise your brows with a laugh. “In Fremdeleigh, I am a horse-thief. What if this Ivarr recognizes me?” 

“He cannot recognize you if he does not see you.”

“Spoken like a man who watches the world from beneath a hood.”

Perhaps it is the firelight, but you think you see Hytham’s ears flush a deep red. “Do as you wish,” he says after a moment. “I ride when this rain stops.”

So it is that when the rain stops, you go with him.


	2. The Short Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the youths, I am *simping* for Hytham.

Fremedeleigh is gone.

At least, most of it. You stop at the edge of the forest and look out across the moors and fields. Hytham stops beside you. Three days you’ve been together, and in those days, you’ve eased his pain as best you can. He had revealed his gratitude with shy, rare smiles and sparse conversation. 

Now, when you look at him, you think you know enough about him to recognize regret when it casts over his features. Fremedeleigh is just the corpse of what had been, and Hytham seems to feel it. 

“The Ragnarssons did this. My friend is not so...wanton.” It is his way of saying he is sorry;  _ he  _ did not do this, and you wonder why it matters to him that could think he’d condone this. 

You swallow hard, unable to meet his eyes when he looks at you. Another home gone. Another life. But you have a chance for a new one. 

You crook a finger toward a charred rooftop beyond. “There,” you say, “That is mine.”

“How did you escape?” He has wanted to ask you the question before -- you’ve read it in his eyes -- but he has been too kind to do so until now.

“I ran.”

“Running and out-running are different things,” muses Hytham, “You must have been lucky.”

Now, you  _ do  _ look at him. But his eyes are too soft, too sorry to be patronizing. You swallow your pride and the bite that wants to spring from it. 

“Luck is not what I would call it,” you tell him. Cursed, more like, with just enough sense of foresight to survive all these years. It has never been a great enough gift to be useful, only one to plague you late at night. 

When you fall silent, your eyes turning again to what had been your home, Hytham edges his horse nearer. The heavy press of its chest against your leg warms you, reminding you that you are not alone. He says, “I will escort you.”

A kind offer.  _ He  _ is kind, though you don’t think he would appreciate being called such now. He watches you with worried eyes, his hands flexing over the reins. 

Appreciation warms your chest, but you force it away, steeling yourself, and you shake your head. “You should look for your friend and Basim. I see no roving Danes.”

He gives you a wry smile. “I was imagining more a loose timber falling on your head. But you are right. I should find Basim.” He thinks for a moment. “Return to this spot when you are done. We -- or, I -- will await you here.”

“I will.” The prospect quickens your heart.  _ A new life so soon _ . “Good luck, Hytham.”

“And to you. Do not get eaten by Danes, healer.”

With that, he turns his horse and rides south to where he hopes the Danes have camped. You tie off the mare at the base of a nearby tree -- it wouldn’t do to be spotted with a Dane’s horse. 

It wouldn’t do to be spotted at all.

.

\-----------------

.

Fremedeleigh might as well be gone. Few of the buildings stand. The air buzzes with the sound of flies and you must cover your nose to shield against the reek of rotting corpses whose names you once called.

When the guilt starts creeping, you tell yourself that it was always to be this way. Their day to join the earth had come, but yours… 

As you flit between the skeletons of buildings, you hope that today is not your day. Timbers creak in the wind, like whispers and following footsteps, and each time, your muscles tighten as you press a little closer to the shadows. The Danes will have moved on. But scavengers, both human and animal, can still be a danger. Your mind conjures an image of the rabid, blue-eyed raider emerging from any of these blackened doorways as you pass them by. Each time the specter returns, you force the thought away before nausea and fear can do more than turn your stomach.

Fate proves kind. Your home is burned, unfit to keep out wind and rain, but some -- only a few, in truth -- of your stores remain. The balms have melted, ruined, and your dried herbs have gone up like tinder. But the box in which you had kept your seeds for new plants and a few vials of oils, condensed a season past, have survived the flames. A few of your other belongings have managed, too.

The under-dress you stole away in is ruined to holes, and you change into the one dress you can find that has not been burned too badly to wear. Gratefully, you find your winter shoes intact. There is little else to carry. A cut-throat idea springs to mind as you are leaving, but though it slows your steps, you do not have the heart to follow it. You  _ should _ scavenge the other homes, but the thought of robbing the neighbors you had left to death sours your mood. 

You leave as quickly as you came. 

.

\----------------

.

Hytham comes with the nightfall. The man is quiet, but his horse has no right to be so, and both come as something of a shock as they appear from the thicket nearby. You stand from your place at the mare’s feet, patting her silver neck to soothe your nerves, and you try hard not to be bothered by Hytham’s grim look. The man, you are learning, makes a habit of stoicism that does not seem to come naturally to him.

A waning thought has you thinking of his smiles, but you brush it away.

Now, however, as those odd-colored eyes find yours, a cold prickling lances your belly. He climbs down from his horse and stretches, but the action does not seem to loosen his worries.

“We will rest here for the night and meet the others at dawn,” he says. 

“The others?” Your chest tightens. “Basim and your friend?”

Hytham looks away. He has already started pulling at his belts and straps. Such has been the way of your recent evenings.

“And the Ragnarssons.” 

_ Ivarr Ragnarsson _ . The name flits through your mind on a chill. He will kill you, if only to save his pride. You have seen men like him before, but none have been as lasting in their impression. 

“Then our roads divide after all,” you say quietly over a knot in your throat. Hytham does not look at you. A new home has been a close thing, but close things are not for you. You prefer sure ones, and risking your life does not bring those. You clear your throat and gesture to a spot of ground before you. “Sit. I won’t send you off with an aching body.”

In the dimming light, the shadows of Hytham’s face catch in a frown. All the same, he sits, shedding his upper garments while you start a small fire. As the wood burns to coals, you search your stores for anything that might ease his chronic aching. He has been good to you these last few days, as you have been good to him, and were these few oils not all you had, you would send him away with one or two of them.

You withdraw a few, these bled from peppermint and sage, and spill a little of both into your hands. You warm them between your palms. These are actions you know, and performing them, simple as they are, takes some of the weight from your chest. 

As you turn back to Hytham, you pause. The glow of flickering flame lights his skin, his eyes, and for the first time that you can remember, you think a man beautiful, rather than handsome. He sits with his arms around his knees, his gaze on the small, licking fire. He is a dream that does not belong in these cold hills. A dream that tomorrow you will force yourself to wake from. 

You ease over to him, forcing a smile. “You will smell like one of England’s elves when I am done with you.” 

The soft teasing of your voice only drives Hytham’s gaze away. He stretches wordlessly to the side, angling himself so that his back and the sore ribs that plague him are exposed to you. 

“This will help more than coals in a scarf,” you assure him.

Still, he says nothing, but with the first pass of your oil fingers over the taunt muscles of his back, you feel him tremble. The sigh he makes is silent, given away only as it mists in the chill air. 

“You are tense,” you whisper, running a knuckle between where his ribs meet his spine. 

“I am fine.”

“You are ridiculous. What was discussed with those friends of yours that has you so...so…” You frown as something in your chest keeps you from teasing him again. The lean, corded muscles of his back feel like wood under your hands, he is so tight, and though you work, nothing you do eases him. “Hytham?”

The sound of his name has him sighing, this one less pleasant than the last. He cranes around to look at you. He really is a fine man, you think, your eyes roving the slope of his nose and the pout of his -- no, you stop that thought.

Tomorrow he will be gone, and the short road to a new beginning with him. It does not bear thinking about. 

Hytham appears to be studying you as well. A knot carves between his brow and he glances away. You resume your work and this time, you notice that the muscles are not as tense as they had been before. He lets his head fall between his knees. 

It is a long while before he speaks. 

“You should not run so easily.” He lifts his head. “Your plan to go to Ravensthorpe should remain the same. Basim would not let the cur harm you.”

Your lips twitch. “Is Basim my stalwart protector now? I do not see him.” You lean near, around to his ear. “Is he hiding in the trees?”

Hytham’s eyes fall shut, long lashes splaying over his cheeks. Quickly, you lean away. You had not meant -- 

But then, maybe you had.

Hytham answers you after too many seconds. 

“He asked after you. He feels... _ ingratiated _ to you.” The word is ground out through clenched teeth. It occurs to you that Hytham does not care for the fact that anything having to do with himself should involve ingratiation on the part of another. Another pain, one of many.

“I soothed your aches,” you say through a smile, “And you kept the wolves from dragging me off.”

“It was a fox.”

“A wolf makes for a better story.” You pinch the meat of his side. 

And...he  _ shudders _ . The feel of his prickling skin beneath your hands is not at all unpleasant. But it is something for dreams. Now, you must talk of reality. 

“Besides Basim,” continues Hytham when his breath has settled, “Eivor will not let any harm come to you. I spoke with her. She agrees Ravensthorpe could do with a healer, and her word is near-law.”

Eivor. This must be the unnamed friend he has mentioned. And a woman...oddly, this eases some of your hesitation.

“You sound keen on this?”  _ You  _ do not like the hope that wriggles into your voice at the question. Or maybe it is a statement. Because Hytham  _ does  _ sound keen on it. 

He turns to look over his shoulder again, more quickly this time. “I like Ravensthorpe. I am keen on its success.”

“You are keen,” you say with a grin, “Keen and fine. What else are you, Hytham?” You pull your hands away and let them rest in your lap. 

He is rosy-cheeked, that’s what he is.

“Tired,” he snaps, “and wishing you would get on with it.”

“Forgive a humble healer for her sins, priest.”

He makes a face. “Perhaps you should not come to Ravensthorpe, after all. There are too many jesters there as it is.”

“Make up your mind, Hytham. Shall I stay --”

Hytham glares at you, but there, again, is a telling twitch of his lips. A new home, perhaps, is not gone after all. Merely eclipsed by a brief fog that had rolled in from these moors. 

“Then you will not run?” asks Hytham when you at last turn away to gather up a few cooling coals into his sash.

“I suppose not. Though if Ivarr Ragnarsson swings for my head, I make no promises. Now, stop your fluttering, priest. This will be warm.”

But he does flutter.

You try harder not to notice.


	3. Promises

Basim greets you with a nod. He is the only one to greet you at all. Surrounded by two grim-faced Danes, one big, the other bigger, Basim looks out of place. Out of place, but not uncomfortable. 

You, on the other hand, know that you appear both. With the sun bright in the sky, some of the cold has retreated, but it hardly improves your restless mood. The camp is a small one, a dozen tents scattered round, and you wonder how much of the blood on the axes and stained leather these men wear belong to your neighbors. You do not meet their eyes when they stare. Instead, you search the shadows for any sign of the mad Dane.

Basim’s voice draws you from your thoughts.

“My wayward apprentice and his charge.” He clasps Hytham’s outstretched forearm and the grin that follows turns to something genuine that warms the black of his eyes.

Hytham looks to one of the Danes, a woman, tall and with hair the color of frosted straw. 

“Eivor, this is the healer we found on the road, the one I spoke to you about.”

She smirks and tosses her head with a chuckle, sending her war-braids spilling. “With the spark in your eye as you did? Yes, I remember the story.” She ignores Hytham’s spluttering and turns to you. “As Hytham has said, I am Eivor, of the Raven Clan. If you can mend scratches, you are welcome.”

“I can mend more than scratches,” you assure her, “But I hope it will not be needed. Thank you for allowing a stranger in your midst. It is a generous offer.”

Eivor nods, though her attention returns to Basim and the other Dane. The latter is an immense bull of a man. He has been quiet thus far, his face serious. Something about it bothers you the longer you look at it, until you are staring, and you are sure recognition is only a thought away.

Something in the eyes, the hair, the chin...

Warm breath on your cheek draws you from your thoughts. Hytham is near, very near, leaned over the distance between your horses.

“We will ride soon.” His eyes find yours. Blue, you decide. Today, they are blue and gilded like a king’s crown. You cannot look at them long, glancing downward to see his fingers flex. They hover in the air, as though he may reach for you. You wish he would. A steadying hand would do you good right now. You watch, disappointed, as that hand falls to his thigh.

What does he read on your face, you wonder? Fear? You certainly feel it, you have since rising this morning, and doubly so when you and Hytham had arrived at the camp.

You fear being recognized atop your stolen mare. 

But of the two dozen faces you count milling about, none belong to the Dane who had set you on this path. You don’t dare ask after him. As the others speak of plans, you remain silent, intent on looking disinterested, even as you listen.

Hytham’s promise holds true. Within the hour, you are riding. Basim guides his horse to the other side of yours, and you find yourself caught -- guarded -- by these pretend monks. It sets your jaw to grinding, even as you remind yourself to be grateful for their protection. The Danes stop watching you as the two men close ranks. Maybe it is the threat in their curved swords or the seriousness of their faces. Either way, no one bothers you.

Hytham, you understand. You have never made friends quickly, but the man is as close to one as you have. But Basim? He owes you nothing, no matter Hytham’s claims. When he watches you, it isn’t with a man’s interest, as you had first assumed. He seems curious. Like a cat watching a bird before deciding whether or not to crush it under a paw.

There is as much danger here as you would have found had you kept to the road alone.

The reins protest between your fingers and you realize that you are squeezing the leather tightly enough to color your knuckles. 

Wilting flowers do not survive as long as you have, but there is nowhere to run should you catch the wrong eye. You are eased when Basim informs you that most of the party will follow the large Dane tomorrow, parting from your smaller group that is bound for Ravensthorpe. 

Riding a little farther in companionable silence, Basim catches your eye. His face is free of the road-dust that cakes so many others, and he lets you have your moment’s study. The cracks and crannies reveal no secrets, however, and you eventually look away. 

“He is not here,” Basim whispers, “Do not look so worried.”

The words do not land as Basim perhaps hopes. There is no feeling behind them, and you are left frowning at the road ahead. That uncanny knowing will not settle -- something is amiss, and if it is not yet so, it will be.

_ Is this a mistake? Am I a fool?  _ Not long ago, you would have called such a neatly presented gift as this one a trap. But the years you have spent in motion, never lingering until arriving at Fremedeleigh, are weighing on your shoulders. The frown settles into the lines of your face as you squint into the early autumn sun. 

But it shines brightly, and if it knows what lies ahead, it keeps those secrets to the heavens.

.

………….

.

Something  _ is _ wrong.

Fitful dreams weave webs of a dangerous face full of teeth and hateful eyes. They stir you, until you are pulled from their depths by fear and the night’s encroaching cold. For a moment’s time, you do not open your eyes to the blackness. Instead, you listen. A fire crackles beyond the flaps of your tent, the sound warm enough to chase away some of the chill. Softer still, voices murmur in the rough tongue of the Dane’s. You hear no breathing from the opposite corner. The woman who had agreed to share her tent has yet to come to bed.

But despite the gentle sounds of a well-guarded camp, a tickling in your bones tells you that all is not as it seems. You have heard the quiet before, and you know the danger that comes with it. 

You open your eyes to darkness, unable to feign sleep any longer. 

And for the first time, the knowing fails you.

It has come too late and met a cannier foe. 

You see nothing, but you feel a weight sweep over your face as a heavy, callused hand cups your mouth and presses hard. Breath is driven out of you on a gasp, but the air meets the resistance of a palm and you are forced to swallow it back down. Cold, gripping fear balls in your chest, and you flail, striking at the body that settles above you.

Thighs press on either side of your middle, lifting only as your left arm is wrenched down and caught under one knee. You strike again with your free right arm, aiming high, clipping the intruder around the head. A voice hisses at you in the darkness, the sharp sound of sucking breath through teeth, and when you strike again, the hand that holds your face shifts to dig its nails into the skin of your cheeks and jaw.

“Found you, foxling,” says the voice. It’s sound is harsh even in a whisper, like the noise of a body dragged over rocks. 

‘Foxling’. You know at once who has you - the mad Dane. 

“Next time, find a hole farther from your hunter.” He titters softly, and through the darkness, you think you can make out the gleam of teeth. “Now, how shall I skin you?”

A sudden effort from you sends him forward, loosing his hand enough for you to sink your teeth into the meat of his palm. He tightens his grip, lifting your head in the span of his large hand, and then sends it cracking back against the ground. Sparks burst behind your eyes as, dimly, you register his weight shifting, moving to better subdue you.

He leans low over your ear, his breath hot at your neck. “I think I  _ will _ kill you,” he hisses, “What our Raven-feeder doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Let’s start here --”

You don’t need to see it to know steel when it presses at your skin, the tip of a dagger digging into the flesh below your jaw. You squeeze shut your eyes, pressure mounting as you try again to throw him off. A rustle of fabric at the edge of your hearing stills you for a single beat of your heart, and you feel the Dane go rigid atop you.

A woman’s voice cracks out, “Oi, what’s this? Find your own tent for your business -- oh, it’s you, Ivarr. I didn’t realize.”

Light from the campfire spills past her, chasing away the shadows from the tent’s interior. For the first time, you can see Ivarr above you, his weathered face and neck flushed, his lank hair obscuring half his face and the snarl that forms on his lips. 

“Can you not see I am busy?” he growls, one hand still tight over your mouth, the other poised with a jagged little knife, the end of which you can just barely see.

The woman hesitates, glancing back over her shoulder. The sounds of campfire chatter have ceased, replaced by the noise of quick steps crunching over stone and dirt. Ivarr sighs, sitting back to rest on your knees. His weight is heavy -- you had learned as much during your struggle, and you know that you had been right in your brief observation that he is a larger man than his build and movements would have you believe on a glance. 

A second figure appears in the opening and a grin curls around Ivarr’s lips. “Ah, Wolf-Kissed! I found a --”

“Get off the woman, Ivarr.” Eivor steps forward and when she is near, the fingers of one hand curl in the back of Ivarr’s shirt. A moment later, he is lifted off of you, Eivor sending him stumbling back. 

Ivarr rights himself with fluid whirl, so smoothly you would think he had not just been tossed away like refuse in the wind. “She is a straggler, Eivor --”

“A survivor,” the woman snaps, “She has escaped you. What rock did you emerge from under, Ivarr? I thought you had returned to Shropshire.”

“I smelled a rat,” his cold blue eyes turn to you, “Had to come check the larder.”

You try not to let him see the shudder that runs through you as you pull your cloak around your shoulders. But he sees past the movement and smiles again. He is almost ugly, except for the moments when the light catches his eyes and the glint in them distracts you from the scars and deep angles. There is a depth in them that frightens you -- it dawns on you that those eyes are not those of a madman, as he first seemed, but rather a very singular personality, one that revels in the sort of violence that nearly left you cut from ear to ear.

A crowd gathers beyond the walls of the tent; you can hear their shuffling and their murmurs and see their shadows playing through the cracks. Two men push past, and a breath leaves you in relief as Basim appears with Hytham at his heels. Hytham’s worried gaze finds yours, dragging over your face to land at a spot near the left side of your jaw. He scowls at what he sees there and it is only then that notice the trickle of warmth running down your neck. Ivarr’s cut had been a nearer miss than you had realized. All over again, the rising, frozen fingers of fear grip you tight.

Basim gestures between the two glaring Danes. “I see our new friend yet lives. Perhaps we can move our arguments outside?”

“Piss off,” grunts Ivarr. He sweeps past Basim. “Unless you want to argue with the tip of that curved sword.”

“Entertaining as that would be, it would be a mistake.” Basim’s eyes shine with a look that would have most men stepping back, but Ivarr only waves a hand at the man.

He calls on his way out, “Somebody get me a drink! If I can’t kill horse thieves, I will drown myself in ale instead.”

At last, the tent is quiet, save for the quiet shuffling of feet. With Ivarr gone, Eivor turns to you. Her eyes run from your feet to your head, her lips quirking. She gestures to the wound left near your jaw. “Seems you’ve a scratch to mend already.” 

At that, she slips out, Basim following her. Only Hytham remains. He looks grim, as he so often does, his eyes on the ground near his feet. 

“Frown much harder and you will dig a hole,” you say, though the words are difficult to get past your lips.

“Good,” scoffs Hytham, “Someone can bury him in it.”

Harsh words, but hard to disagree with. The bite in them surprises a grin out of you. The fear and panic are fading, and you find yourself moving on steady feet to Hytham’s side. The press of your hand at his arm draws his eyes up to yours. He seems to at last catch himself, shaking his head. 

“I am glad Eivor was here,” he says with a gentleness you feel in your chest.

“You and Basim were not far behind her,” you remind him.

“Cutting a throat is a quick thing. If he meant to do it, I think we would not have been here in time.”

“If he meant to do it?” You raise a hand to your neck, fingers sliding over skin tacky with drying blood. 

“Even Ivarr knows better than to kill a woman in the middle of camp.”

“So he meant to frighten me then?” He had done a fine job of it. He had snatched up your life and held it between his hands on a whim.

Hytham shakes his head again. “I think he likes to play with his food.”

“Must we call me that?”

Hytham laughs, even as your stomach churns. “You are right. I am sorry. A poor image.” His cheer sobers quickly, his eyes settling on you once more, though the shine in them remains. When you had joined him at his side, you had placed yourself nearer to him than perhaps you should. He has somehow closed the distance further still without you noticing, the heat from his body warm across the small space. So close, you can see the freckles across his cheeks, remnants left from a time in a sunnier climate than England’s. He appears to be considering something.

“Here,” he says after seconds have passed, “Take this.” With one hand, he reaches for you, his palm soft over the back of your hand. With the other, he reaches around to his side and frees a small, sharp-looking knife from his belt. He presses it into your outstretched fingers. “In case Eivor is not around next time.”

“What of you?” The question leaves you without you meaning it to, and your cheeks heat mercilessly. Hytham’s gaze softens in the light.

“It is my knife. Think of me when you stab the man with it.” His fingers run over the back of your hand, so light it could almost be imagined, and you shiver at the touch. He pulls his hand away.

“That’s very cut-throat of you, Hytham.”

“You would be surprised how cut-throat I can be, healer.” At this, something passes over his expression, but it is gone before you can name it. “Now, get some rest.”

“Goodnight,” you tell him. He slips out of the tent, pausing before the flap can fall. He catches your eye, smiles once, and then is gone.

.

…………….

.

The next morning, your mare is already saddled when you find her. 

Ivarr sits atop her, grinning down at you as he braces against the saddle. The mare tosses her head, snorting when he pulls her reins tight. You frown as you watch his fingers wind their way through her silver mane, twirling the hair,  _ taunting _ you. 

“You’ve taken good care of her,” he says when you come to a stop safely out of his reach. “So  _ kind _ of you to return her to us.”

It is another cold day, cloudier than the one before it, but anger heats your face as you glare at him. But what can you say? She is not your horse. She belonged with the Danes to start with, not quite stolen, but it’s a near enough difference that you won’t argue it. One glance at him tells you that Ivarr knows this, as he knows that you are snared by your helplessness to protest. 

He nudges his heels into her sides. She comes to you, her velvet nostrils flaring as she noses your arm. As you reach to pet her, heat spreads behind your eyes, unreasonable and traitorous. She is a horse. Nothing more or less. Still, as you feel her warm breath on your palm, it feels as though Ivarr is taking something more from you.

And when you find the nerve to meet his eyes, you know that has been his intention from the start. 

He smiles, all teeth. 

“They say you are a healer. Or did they call you a witch?” He tilts his head - mocking you. “Dark _seidr_ , that. So, tell me, witch, why is it that you did not heal _all those_ _people_? What good are you if you cannot attach heads back onto shoulders?” His voice rings with the sing-song sound of a child’s rhyme. It echoes in your ears like bitter wind. He digs his heels into the mare’s sides once more, circling her around you. Her dark eye watches you as she passes, and somewhere in your heart, you think that the beast is sorry. Ivarr continues, his voice rising loud enough to turn heads. “Instead, you ran. Like a coward. Do you know what we do to cowards?”

The blood in your veins goes cold as you glare spitefully up at him. You want to spit at that grinning face, or claw at it, or sink Hytham’s knife into the socket of one of those eyes. Ivarr leans closer, craning down until his face is only a foot from yours. He studies your face and his eyes glimmer at the boiling wrath he must read there. He raises a hand, runs his thumb over his lip as though to taste the air as it sours between you. 

When you do not answer, he says, “We polish our blades with their innards.”

_ Coward. Witch.  _ They are only names. But as they slither out from his lips, they sound like curses, echoing in the back of your mind. Hands clenching at your side, it takes all your effort not to reach up and drag him from his horse. He likely won’t fall for that trick twice. 

Instead, you raise your chin, and try not to think about how your insides feel as though they have turned to water. 

As levelly as you can, you reply, “You did not manage it the first time, nor the second. Do you want to know what they say about you? They call you ‘boneless’.” You peer up at him, unblinking. “I wonder if it is because you do not have the spine to back up your words.”

A boom of laughter fills the air, startling the mare and sending her prancing. He snatches her reins and pulls her back around to face you. 

“You,” he levels a finger at you, “you, I will skin cunt first. The Raven Clan and its strays will not protect you forever. Rest easy knowing that your fate is already sewn. You won’t be my finest kill, but I am a man who can find joy in the little things.”

He pulls at the mare, rounding her with a bellowing whinny, and leads her away. 

You are glad to see him go. But as you know many things, you  _ know _ , down to your heart, down to your bones, that you will see him again.


	4. Small Comforts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gentle reminder about the warnings listed above.

At Ravensthorpe, Eivor sees to it that you are situated into a small, four-walled building at the edge of the settlement. It is not as large as your home in Fremedeleigh had been, but it is warm, and there is room enough for a fire and a cupboard for your stores. The first weeks are spent familiarizing yourself with Ravensthorpe’s needs -- your mornings mean learning the local plants and your evenings see you bundling herbs for drying and using the wax and oil you’ve haggled for to make balms that will ease Ravensthorpe’s pains. The settlement’s people are a varied group, most of them welcoming, but as days turn to weeks, you remain a stranger. Most of them are Dane’s and one afternoon, it occurs to you that  _ you  _ are the one casting the wariest glances.

Some days, Hytham seeks you out. Others, the loneliness gets the better of you, and you go looking for him. Without the strain of riding, his injuries do not trouble him as often, and your visits now are filled as much with conversation as they are any actual work on your part. Sometimes, he is too distracted by his scrolls and letters to answer your small talk. On those days, you learn to sit quietly, and you both seem happy for the company. Basim had departed shortly after your arrival, and Eivor not long after that. So it is that the two of you settle into a friendship that is troubled only by an occasional look that lingers too long. 

Things are quiet.

They are almost good.

You only doubt it on the nights when you wake, straining to hear past the night sounds and the churning in your stomach. Those nights, you are left wiping the sweat from your brow, pacing the floor until dawn. Hytham asked you once on a day that followed one such night why your eyes were bruised from sleeplessness. With hands that shook, you had looked at him and lied.  _ You were fine. You are fine.  _ But Hytham had spoken those same words enough to know when they were colored by untruth. 

So, you tell yourself that you  _ are  _ fine, and as long as there are tinctures and salves to busy yourself making, you can almost believe it. 

.

………..

.

One evening finds you watching your doorway with hungry eyes as you chew at your dinner. You wait for a familiar shadow to fill it, rubbing crumbs from your mouth every few bites -- just in case  _ he _ comes. He would laugh at those crumbs, eyes sparkling, and you catch yourself imagining how your face would heat. But when dinner has come and gone, and there is still no sign of Hytham, you find your shoes and shawl. Only one of the day’s tasks remains, and if it will not come to you, you will find it. 

The occasional headache brings Hytham to you -- so he claims -- brought on by too many hours pouring over his letters in too dark a room, and every few days, he comes by for a new satchel of dried mint and other herbs to help ease the pain. It’s one of many excuses. You find yourself cataloging them, keeping track, so that on a day like today when he has missed making one, you make the excuse instead.

“Hytham?” you call once at the doorway to his  _ bureau.  _ A strange thing to call so small a building, but he insists that’s what it is. He does not answer, and you poke your head inside. The bureau is poorly lit on the best day, but with the light fading from the sky, the shadows have spread between the walls to swallow everything save for a flickering candle atop Hytham’s desk. 

The sheen of dark hair beneath the glow draws a smile over your lips. His head is down, his face burrowed against the bend of his arm over the desk. 

As you draw closer, you realize that Hytham doesn’t quite snore, but he breathes softly, audibly, the noise as gentle as most everything else about him. You’ve half a mind to let him sleep, if you didn’t know he would wake later and work through the night at the expense of any further rest. 

You creep through the darkness. When you’ve neared his side, you reach out, tapping his shoulder with a finger. 

“Wake up, Hytham.” 

He stirs, then jolts, sitting up so quickly that you must stifle a yelp. As he sweeps to his feet, his fingers wrap around the wrist of your nearest hand in a grip so efficient it startles you. You are drawn forward, only to be stopped by Hytham’s other hand catching your shoulder. He draws in a sharp breath, and his eyes are so bright and pale that even in the shadows, you can find them easily. He exhales your name. Not healer, not ‘woman’, as some have taken to calling you, but the name you had given him one evening when he’d found the nerve to ask for it. 

“I am sorry!” He releases your shoulder, but his hand travels downward, steadying you at your hip. His fingers are warm, your dress thin, and just once, you could swear you feel them curl into you. 

He looks about himself, blinking at a room that is undoubtedly darker than when he had nodded off. 

He’s a hard one not to tease, and you are glad for the darkness as you fight a smile. “Hytham, you’ve slept through the night!”

He frowns at these words, running a hand over heavy-lidded eyes. “But...it’s dark out.”

“It’s very early,” you insist. “Hytham, really, this isn’t like you.”

“But -” His eyes dart to the desk and the paper atop which he’d fallen asleep. Horror dawns on his face, so stark you feel a sudden twinge of guilt. “Dear God! I’ve a report to finish for Basim. The messenger leaves this morning!”

You tsk at him as he throws himself back into his chair. “For shame, Hytham. Not a very dutiful monk, are you?” 

Hytham winces, glancing at you. His eyes rove down to the smile that hangs from your lips, and suddenly, the stiffness leaves his shoulders. He sinks against the back of his chair. 

“It’s not morning, is it?”

Your smile grows. “Not yet.”

“I should have left you on the side of that road.”

“If you had, there would be no one to tell you that you’ve missed dinner. Leave the report,” you say as you lean down and take the quill from him seconds after he’s reached for it, “Go eat something before it’s all gone.”

He makes a face, tries for the quill again, and hisses when you swat his hand. 

“Go, I say. But take this first.” You press the small satchel of herbs into his chest. The light is fading quickly now; it shadows Hytham’s face as he looks down, though what you catch of his expression is...thoughtful. A moment later, he presses his hand over yours, large fingers gentle as he pulls it away and turns your hand over, your palm facing upward. He curls your fingers over the satchel, patting them. 

“The nap has taken care of the headache for the night,” he says. His eyes flick to yours. “You keep these. Bring them to me tomorrow.”

An argument is on the tip of your tongue, but the look in his eyes stops you. 

It’s another excuse. Another  _ reason _ to see you.

And from the warmth swelling in your chest, you know you are just as fond as this one as you are all his others. 

“If you’re sure?” you ask. You know he is.

The pads of his fingers run over your knuckles. “I am sure.”

.

…………….

.

When Raventhorpe’s alarm bells sound, your first thought is that you should have taken Hytham his herbs. 

_ What will he do without them now?  _

At the first tolling, you stand from where you are crouched by a cooled pot, pulled an hour prior from the fire. Any thoughts of spooning the oils from the boiled herbs vanish like smoke from the embers, and you quickly set your spoon aside. Could you have missed something? Had you really been  _ so  _ distracted that you hadn’t noticed the telltale inkling in your gut?

Swift steps carry you to the door. You look out, down the settlement’s sloping incline and across rooftops with their sleep smokestacks rising…

You have seen a sight like this one not long ago.

The alarm bell continues to sound, muffled voices from the docks turning to cries, and you catch a glimpse of a swift-moving mast approaching along the river.  _ No. It can’t be. Not again.  _ A scowl carves into your brow. In England, it is always raiders. 

As well-protected as Ravensthorpe is, what group would be foolish enough to attack here? Especially with the likes of Eivor and her crew to fight them off -- 

The thought stops you cold.

Eivor has been gone for weeks now. Last you had heard, she isn’t due back for days yet. And if she is gone, and most of the fighting men with her, what does that leave Ravensthorpe?

You never should have come here.

Settling in England for a second time must have been madness. Laziness. Numbly, you stumble, your hands catching the door frame, nails scrabbling against the wood to hold yourself up. The wind beats around your ears, stirring your hair, and on it, you can hear the panicked shouts from the docks turn to something shriller.  _ Screams _ .

A few men and women sprint from their homes, axes in hand, others not far behind them holding hoes and shovels. 

Madness. Your stomach churns.  _ Don’t they know they’re going to die? _

Though you cannot see the ship when it pulls into shallow water, its bulk hidden from view by the rows of houses and the curving hillside, you hear the battle cries of the raiders as they disembark. Raventhorpe’s people run to meet them. Soon, the crash of iron rings in the air. 

_ Where is Hytham?  _ Surely, he wouldn’t join them? Your hands, your feet, everything feels numb, as though the chill air has found a way inside you and frozen your bones. The shouts grow closer as you waver a few steps from your door. The raiders are making their way up the hill.

_ Hytham… _

But if you wait...if you linger here…

What can you do for him if you’re gutted by a raider?

A sick, gurgling sound burbles from your throat as you turn. You stumble, limbs feeling light and loose in the air, but then you right yourself, pushing off toward the woods. The forests around Ravensthorpe are thick. You can hide there and hope, perhaps pray, if anyone listens, that these people will survive. That  _ Hytham _ will survive.

The others...you think of the other faces you have come to know. Yanli -- sometimes you suspected that she would lower her prices for you so that you could eat. Gunnar, who laughed and called you ‘flower’, like the ones you picked near his workshop. Randvi, who had welcomed you as warmly as if you had mattered...

As you round the side of your home -- no, a house, it was not yours long enough to be home -- a clearer voice rings out from behind you, calling your name. You turn, only to see Hytham bolt out from between two buildings. 

“There you are!” He sounds breathless, a curved sword held at his side. Your eyes travel the length of him and you sigh when you see the only stains on his white robes are from dust and blood that does not seem to be his. Almost against your own will, you take a step toward him, away from the safety of the woods. He catches your arm, his hand sliding upward, and for just a moment, only long enough for you to imagine it, the back of one finger skims your cheek.

“You must get to the longhouse,” he says, snapping his hand away. “Go now, before it is barricaded.”

You find his eyes -- they are pin-pricked, paler than blue, and something inside gives a traitorous pull at his words. The longhouse is precisely where the raiders will go once they --

\--  _ if  _ they make it past Hytham and the others.

To board yourself up in that hall of wood and thatched straw with the wives and children of dead men will be to burn with them. You have seen that mistake before.

Hytham’s expression softens beneath the sheen of sweat and dirt. “Go, now,” he says, more gently this time, “ _ Please. _ They will not make it that far, I swear it.”

He lacks the cunning of Basim and the hardness of Eivor, but there is  _ something _ shining in his eyes that makes you believe him. 

In a gutting turn of self-betrayal, you find yourself nodding. 

“Be careful,” you say quietly, the words half-breathed. Hytham dips his head and your fingers curl into your palms to fight the way your eyes burn. You won’t kiss him goodbye. You won’t even say it. It will be easier to wish that you had, than to acknowledge right now that he might not walk back up this hill. 

Instead, you turn, and as you run, you do not look back to see if he watches you go.

.

……….

.

Even behind the walls of the longhouse, you can smell the blood. The fight was still raging when new shouts sounded from the west and the thunder of footfalls had passed by on the way down the hill. Either Ravensthorpe’s small group of fighters had been routed, or reinforcements had joined the fray.

You wait with the other cowards to learn which.

After minutes that feel like hours, a voice calls out from longhouse doors. The shout and the gruffness of the voice behind it drive a sigh of relief from your lungs. 

“Open! It is Eivor. You are safe.”

You push away from the corner in which you hid, shooing two small children from beneath your arms. “Go back to your mother,” you whisper, pushing them gently toward a young woman with a babe swaddled at her chest. “All is right now.”

As you watch them go, messy braids swinging around faces red from crying, you wonder if you would have protected them if it had come to that.

There is no knowing that answer and for once, as nerves chew through your insides, you are grateful for the ignorance.

You follow the small crowd from the longhouse, your eyes squinting down the hill for any sign of --

A gauntleted hand claps your shoulder and you find yourself looking across into Eivor’s crooked smile. She manages to look both tired and invigorated at once, the rings around her eyes bruised and blue, but a rosiness to her cheeks that speaks of good cheer -- and, you supsect, relief. 

“Still alive, healer?” she asks.

“Am I?”

She snorts and stifles a laugh with a shake of her head. “I hope so! You have work to do.”

“Hytham, is he --” You bite your lip.  _ That _ is one question too many. But Eivor’s smile softens in a way that reminds you that she is not made entirely of blood and sharpened steel. 

“He is alive and fussing over what they did to that ugly green eyesore of his.”

You’ve half a mind and a surge of wounded pride to tempt you to reply with a snappish, ‘ _ Good for him _ ,’ but you have said too much already. Instead, you nod and settle for thanks that Eivor waves off. She turns you loose.

As you make your way toward the docks, more than a few strange faces catch your eye. Eivor must have brought these men with her. They are Danes, you’re sure, but they do not wear the Raven Clan’s colors on their shields. Feeling foolish for having spoken so...unsubtly, you make a point of taking the long way around to the docks, forgoing the route that will take you by Hytham’s bureau. Later, when the nerves and leftover fear have stopped rumbling in your stomach, you will see him. It takes a promise to yourself, but you make it, and once you have, to your surprise and dismay, your feet remain steady on their path. 

There are many wounded, but none dead, at least among Raventhorpe’s numbers. The fools who had attacked had thought one ship’s worth of men would be enough, but they had obviously not counted on neither the ferocity that met them, nor the timely arrival of reinforcements. You set to work and within the hour, you’ve helped or dragged most of the injured men and women to the barracks. Having them in one place makes it easier work for you and, after sending a boy off to collect your kit, you work until your hands are as raw as the wounds you are mending. 

By the time night falls, a bone-deep exhaustion you have not known for a long time sets in. You push to your feet with a groan and drag yourself over to a basin to rinse your hands. One of the women who had joined your efforts, a young thing, with hair the color of soot, comes to your side.

“We have it, I think,” she says.

You give her a small smile, looking at her with tired eyes. “I think you do.” You take a breath, only to frown at how it tastes of blood and sweat. You will be glad to take a few hours’ break from it. “I will be here to relieve you at first light.”

She nods, a matted strand of that ink-black hair falling over her eyes as she tilts her head in the direction of the wounded. “They are grateful.”

“Not so grateful as I, I should think.” It’s the truth, understated and plain. These people had saved you today -- both from the raiders and from making a coward of yourself. You turn from the young woman and slip out into the fresh night air. The visiting Danes are a raucous crowd; you can hear them from where their horses are tethered at the far edge of the settlement. Near your home, you realize, glaring into the darkness. As you make your way across the village, your steps slow in front of the bureau. Once, hours ago, as you had flitted between the wounded, you thought you had glimpsed white robes from the corner of your eye, but when you had turned, there had been no sign that Hytham had been there at all. Checking on you? Or had it been an image conjured by the first signs of your exhaustion?

The windows flicker with candle light. The sight drives a heavy thump in your chest.  _ He’s awake… _

You glance at your hands and in the dim glow, you can make out the crusted brown flecks of dried blood around your nails. It stains your fingers, your clothes, and you know that even your eyes will bear signs of what you’ve seen this evening. Hytham will have had time to leave the battle behind him -- or the surface stains of it, at any rate -- but you have not. There’s a basin full of cleaner water than that which you’d had at the barracks waiting for you at home, and a clean dress that does not smell of bloodied soldiers.

With another glance at the window, you resume your walk. 

A minute more, maybe two, brings you within sight of your home. Even in starlight, it is easy to see that its once plain front is littered with clay pots, hanging vines, and bundles of drying herbs. Maybe it is a home, after all, and in your chest, you are glad not to have lost it. Sounds from the visiting men’s camp are too close for your nerves to rest easy, and any thoughts of comforts brought by home and hearth are pushed away in favor of caution. 

The blustery snort of a horse startles you and you skip a step in surprise. This one is closer than the others. Squinting into the shadows that are too deep beneath the trees to be reached by the moon, you slow for a better look. The horse paws at the earth, its large shape shifting, until a silvery flank moves far enough from the shadows for you to see. 

_ Could it be… _

You frown, trying in vain to see through the night. You draw closer. Dappled, like hammered silver, so beautiful a coat is a rare thing. But it couldn’t be.

The mare.

Something is wrong. 

Panic strikes you, cutting up your spine like a blade from the darkness, and you shift on a single step to dart back the way you came. But even as you move, a hand seems to materialize from the shadows beneath your roof. You catch it on a glimpse, twisting out of its reach. But as fast as you have moved, a shape slithers from the darkness, so quick your mind can think nothing other than primal, rabbit-instinct _.  _ An arm slides around your waist, dragging you back as another tries to wrap around your throat. 

You reach for a clay pot, one balanced atop the railing of your porch, and, gripping it tight, you whirl with a ferocious shout. The pot shatters against a raised arm, showering your attacker in a spray of shards and dirt. 

_ Ivarr _ . 

He had promised you. And you had believed him. But not so soon! Not like this. 

You gather your skirt and dip beneath the next swing of his arm. But it has been a feint. His other arm goes low, catching your around the middle with a roughness that drives the air from you. 

Fingers curling into claws, you reach for his face, dragging them over his cheeks and nose to the sound of thrilled laughter. He twists his head, catching a knuckle between his teeth, and gives it a sharp bite that has you yelping. Hefting you into the air, he drives you back, half your body over his shoulder, and with an effort meant more for cruelty and spite than necessity, he runs until you are slammed against the corner of your home. Not a moment later, his weight slams against you, driving what little air is left from your lungs. You wheeze, unable to bend, even as your body tries to sink. 

The wide brim of his hand is pressed over your mouth. 

He tsks at you, crooning, “Where is that canniness, now, foxling? Hmm?” His breath is hot against your cheek, the rough stubble of his jaw scraping against your skin. You struggle to angle your head away, but Ivarr leans closer, and you press your eyes shut to keep from seeing him. 

He presses harder against you as you wriggle in a desperate effort to draw your knees up. You try again, freeing your leg long enough to manage a dull smack against his side. The hand that is not pressed to your mouth slides down, beneath your thigh, and holds tight to bend of your leg. Your stomach sinks as he raises it to rest against his hip. 

“Oho,” he chuckles, and you heave at the feeling of his breath against your ear, “That  _ tickles. _ You know Danes by now, healer -- we like to fight and fuck. And I’ve done one of those things today already.”

“Don’t --” A ragged gasp leaves you.

“No?” He rolls his eyes, a dramatic flare that somehow puts a fine point on just how little patience he has for you. Immediately, you wish you had not seen it. But you’ve caught the movement even as your sight blurs at the corners. With him pressed against you, you make up your mind that you will die before you let him see you weep. Foolish pride. But it’s all you have left. Ivarr sighs. “If you’re sure. This is the part where I remind you that I don’t need to pry apart your thighs to have fun with you. Squeeze them tight, witch. Makes this next bit easier.”

With grunt, he hauls you off your feet long enough to spin you around. Once, you slam your head back, hoping to catch his nose or anything else, but Ivarr only chuckles and catches your hair in his hand long enough to yank your head down. Your mouth opens in protest, and he must be ready, his hand coming around you shove a ball of cloth between your teeth. You try to spit it out, but forces yet another rag over your mouth and ties it behind your head. Your hands follow. He tosses you to the ground, fighting you all the while, until the press of his knee at your throat allows him time to bind your legs.

Just that simply, it is finished.  _ Over. _

Ivarr hefts you onto his shoulder. The effort has left him panting, and that at least, is a small pleasure. It is short-lived. 

“Say goodbye now - oh, you can’t. I’ll do it for you. Goodbye, Ravensthorpe!” With one arm holding you, he slings himself into the mare’s saddle, sliding you from his shoulder and across his lap. A sharp pinch at your thigh has you gritting your teeth against the rough cloth. “You and I ride tonight,” he explains. “They’ll think you’ve run off, of course. Cowards  _ do  _ that. And even if they don’t, what do you really matter to them?” He clicks at the mare and soon, you are left staring at the ground as it rocks past beneath her hooves. Ivarr seems to remember that he was speaking. He gives your back a soft pat, and even that leaves an ache between your shoulder blades. “Ah yes, I think that to them, you matter even less than you matter to me.”

As the mare pushes through the trees, Ravensthorpe fades from view. You have lost your home after all. Tears sting your eyes, but Ivarr never knows it, and so you let yourself weep. 


End file.
